Casting Shadows

Today’s accessory prompt for #RPGaDAY2024 is asking about one we would like to see. However, as it has been a few days since I made use of the alternate list of prompts, I will be drawing from it for this post. The alternate Day 9 prompt is heroes and I rolled a 7 which suggests creating a simple mechanism around the idea of the prompt.

I am in the sort of four-color mood that is essentially black and white, so taking the notion of hero to mean the person who stands up for objective good in the face of the person who has sunk down into service of objective evil, let’s make a mechanism!

Do you need story with that? No.

One of the many cool things about RPGs that distinguish them from other media is that they do not have to be viewed, played, or dealt with as storytelling. Rather, if we get out their way, put ourselves in the position of a character in a time and place that suits them, and choose to act upon, react to, and interact with that imagined world, they can provide us with an experience of a life markedly different from our own.

With that in mind, the mechanism that I propose is to have a tool which determines the reaction of characters around the players’ characters set to match the classic understanding of relationships between the heroes and the villains, as well as a degree to which that reaction affects their behavior.

2d12 and a drive toward evil

Let’s use 2d12 because as Broken Rooms taught us, they can be said to roll an average of 13 when added together, and that is often a very villainous number. Let’s be even more villainous though and roll them but not total them. Keep their results separate. No one will ever suspect it (Cue evil laugh). The purpose of the mechanism is to launch regular Non Player Characters into lives of villainy after coming into contact with the Player Character(s), and to determine just how much villainy will infect them and change their behavior.

When would something like this be used? Well, ultimately it can remove the need to create a villain or villains in advance and set them up to oppose the hero(s). Instead, the actions of the heroes in their civilian lives and in their more heroic moments, can cause the transformation of a bystander or someone they know. Like Superboy and Lex Luthor, like Batman and seemingly much of Gotham City, and like Spiderman and Harry Osborne, the passage of the hero through life can bring with it unforeseen and terrible consequences. This mechanism puts those outcomes where they belong, in the hands of Destiny.

Simple Villainy Table

• 1-3 Befriend (read subtly Corrupt) the hero
• 4-6 Jealous of the hero
• 7-9 Contemptuous of the hero
• 10-12 “Redeem” (read overtly corrupt) the hero

Simple Villainous Intensity Table

• 1-3 Act if provoked
• 4-6 Plot eventual doom
• 7-9 Recruit Allies Now
• 10-12 Balk the hero when possible